cellphone

SACRAMENTO — A day after his younger brother was denied release, Lyle Menendez also saw California parole officials reject his bid for freedom, ruling he will remain behind bars for now for the 1989 shotgun murders of his parents.

The parole board grilled Menendez, 57, over his efforts to get witnesses to lie during his trials, the lavish shopping sprees he and his brother Erik, 54, took after their parents’ killings, and whether he felt relief after the murders.

“I felt this shameful period of those six months of having to lie to relatives who were grieving,” Menendez told the board. “I felt the need to suffer. That it was no relief.”

As the elder brother, Menendez said he at times felt like the protector of Erik, but that he soon realized the murders were not the right way out of sexual abuse they were allegedly suffering at the hands of their parents.

“I sort of started to feel like I had not rescued my brother,” he said. “I destroyed his life. I’d rescued nobody.”

The closely watched hearing for Lyle Menendez, one of the most well-known inmates currently in the state’s prison system, was thrown into disarray Friday afternoon after audio of his brother’s parole hearing on Thursday was publicly released.

The audio, published by ABC 7, sparked anger and frustration from the brothers’ relatives and their attorney, who accused the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation of leaking the audio and tainting Lyle’s hearing.

A CDCR spokesperson confirmed the audio was “erroneously” issued in response to a records request, but did not elaborate or immediately respond to additional questions from The Times.

“I have protected myself, I have stayed out of this, I have not had a relationship with two human beings because I was afraid, and I came here today and I came here yesterday and I trusted that this would only be released in a transcript,” said Tiffani Lucero-Pastor, a relative of the brothers. “You’ve misled the family.”

Heidi Rummel, Lyle Menendez’s parole attorney, also criticized CDCR, accusing the agency of turning the hearing into a “spectacle.”

“I don’t think you can possibly understand the emotion of what this family is experiencing,” she said. “They have spent so much time trying to protect their privacy and dignity.”

After the audio was published, Rummel said family members who planned to testify decided not to speak after all, and said she would be looking to seal the transcripts of Friday’s hearing.

Parole Commissioner Julie Garland said regulations allowed for audio to be released under the California Public Records Act. Transcripts of parole hearings typically become public within 30 days of a grant or denial, under state law.

During his first-ever appeal to the state parole board, Lyle Menendez was questioned over his credibility.

Garland referred to Menendez’s appeal to get witnesses to lie, plans to escape, and lies to relatives about the killings as a “sophistication of the web of lies and manipulation you demonstrated.”

Menendez said he had no plan at the time, there was just “a lot of flailing in what was happening.”

“Even though you fooled your entire family about you being a murderer, and you recruited all these people to help you … you don’t think that’s being a good liar?” Garland asked.

Menendez said the remorse he felt after the crimes perhaps helped create a “strong belief” he didn’t have anything to do with the killings.

Dmitry Gorin, a former Los Angeles County prosecutor, said the board’s decision denying parole was consistent with past decisions involving violent crimes.

“Although this is a high-profile case, the parole board rejecting the release demonstrates that it seeks to keep violent offenders locked up because they still pose a risk to society,” Gorin said. “Historically, the parole board does not release people convicted of murder, and this case is no different.

He called the decision a win for Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, who has opposed the brothers’ release.

The brothers were initially sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for the killings of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez, but after qualifying for resentencing they gained a chance at freedom.

Many family members have supported their cause, but the gruesome crime and the brothers’ conduct behind bars led to pushback against their release.

The killings occurred after the brothers purchased shotguns in San Diego with a false identification and shot their parents in the family living room.

The bloody crime scene was compared by investigators to a gangland execution, where Jose Menendez was shot five times, including once in the back of the head. Evidence showed their mother had crawled, wounded, on the floor before the brothers reloaded and fired a final, fatal blast.

The brothers reported the killings to 911, according to court records. Soon afterward, prosecutors during the trial noted, the two siblings began to spend large sums of money, including buying a Porsche and a restaurant, which was purchased by Lyle. Erik bought a Jeep and hired a private tennis instructor.

Prosecutors argued it was access to their multimillion-dollar inheritance that prompted the killing after Jose Menendez shared that he planned to disinherit the brothers.

But during the trials, the Menendez brothers and relatives testified that the two siblings had undergone years of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of their father.

In contrast to their frenzy around their trial, Thursday and Friday’s parole hearings were quiet — yet occasionally contentious — affairs.

A Times journalist was the only member of the public allowed to view the hearing on a projector screen in a room inside the agency’s headquarters outside of Sacramento.

During the Friday hearing, the parole board quickly dived into the allegations that the brothers were sexually assaulted by their father, which Lyle Menendez said confused and “caused a lot of shame in me.”

“That pretty much characterized my relationship with my father,” he said, adding that the fear of being abused left him in a state of “hyper vigilance,” even after the abuse stopped and his father began to abuse Erik.

“It took me a while to realize that it stopped,” Menendez said. “I think I was still worried about it for a long time.”

Growing up, he said, taking care of his younger brother gave him purpose, and helped to protect him from “drowning in the spiral of my own life.”

Menendez alleged his mother also sexually abused him, but said he did not share it during his comprehensive risk assessment because he “didn’t see it as abuse really.”

“Today, I see it as sexual abuse,” he said. “When I was 13, I felt like I was consenting and my mother was dealing with a lot and I just felt like maybe it wasn’t.”

Board members also questioned Lyle Menendez on why he didn’t mention the possibility they were removed from their parents’ will in their submissions to the board, but Menendez contended their inheritance was not a motive in the killings.

Instead, he said, it became “a problem afterward” as they worried they would have no money after their parents’ deaths.

“I believe there was a will that disinherited us somewhere,” he said.

The result of Thursday’s hearing means Erik can’t seek parole again for three years, a decision that left some relatives and supporters of the younger brother stunned.

“How is my dad a threat to society,” Talia Menendez, his stepdaughter, wrote on Instagram shortly after the decision was made. “This has been torture to our family. How much longer???”

In a statement issued Thursday, relatives said they were disappointed by the decision and noted that going through Lyle’s hearing Friday would be “undoubtedly difficult,” although they remained “cautiously optimistic and hopeful.”

Friends, relatives and former cellmates have touted the brothers’ lives behind bars, pointing to programs they’ve spearheaded for inmates, including classes for anger management, meditation, and helping inmates in hospice care.

But members of the board questioned both siblings about their violation of rules, zeroing in at times about repeated use of contraband cellphones.

During the hearing Friday, Lyle said he sometimes used cellphones to keep in touch with family outside the prison. But Deputy Parole Commissioner Patrick Reardon questioned this explanation, and asked why Menendez needed a cellphone if he could make legitimate calls from a prison-issued tablet.

The rule violation, board members pointed out, had resulted in Menendez being barred from family visits for three years.

Reardon pointed out that Menendez pleaded guilty to two cellphone violations in November 2024 and in March 2025. Menendez was also linked to three other violations, although another cellmate of his took responsibility for those violations.

Menendez said the violations occurred when he lived in a dorm with five other inmates, and admitted the use of cellphones was a “gang-like activity.” The group, he said, probably went through at least five cellphones.

Heidi Rummel, Menendez’s parole attorney, argued in her closing that despite the cellphone issues, Menendez had no violent incidents on his prison record.

“This board is going to say you’re dangerous because you used your cellphones,” she said. “But there is zero evidence that he used it for criminality, that he used it for violence. He didn’t even lie about it.”

But members of the board repeatedly focused on what seemed to be issues of credibility. Reardon said at times it felt like Menendez was “two different incarcerated people.”

“You seem to be different things at different times,” Reardon said during the hearing. “I don’t think what I see is that you used a cellphone from time to time. There seems to be a mechanism in place that you always had a cellphone.”

Garland asked Menendez about whether he used his position on the Men’s Advisory Council — a group meant to be a liaison on issues between inmates and prison administrators — to manipulate others and gain unfair benefits.

Menendez said the position gave him access to wall phones, and used the position to help him barter or gain favors.

Garland also pointed to an assessment that found Menendez exhibited antisocial traits, entitlement, deception, manipulation and a resistance to accept consequences.

Menendez said he had discussed those issues, but that he didn’t agree he showed narcissistic traits.

“They’re not the type of people like me self-referring to mental health,” he said, adding that he felt his father displayed narcissistic tendencies and lack of self-reflection. “I just felt like that wasn’t me.”

Menendez pointed to his work to help inmates in prison who are bullied or mocked.

“I would never call myself a model incarcerated person,” he said. “I would say that I’m a good person, that I spent my time helping people. That I’m very open and accepting.”

The parole board applauded Menendez’s work and educational history while in prison, noting he was working on a master’s degree.

Despite the violations, Menendez argued he felt he had done good work in prison.

“My life has been defined by extreme violence,” he said, tears visible on his face. “I wanted to be defined by something else.”

“If you’re a parent, Lauren Greenfield’s new doc about teens and social media ‘is a horror movie.’”

That Los Angeles Times headline ran on an August story about Greenfield’s acclaimed five-part docuseries that followed Los Angeles-area high school students during the 2021-22 school year, tracking their cellphone and social media use for a revealing portrait of their online life.

Greenfield remembers the headline.

“I’ve heard that from parents,” Greenfield says. “And I keep hearing it whenever we screen the series.”

Greenfield has taken “Social Studies” to schools around the country since its premiere last summer, airing episodes and answering questions, speaking alongside a rotating group of the show’s subjects. And, yes, the most common takeaway remains: Parents have no idea what’s going on with their teenagers — though “horror” is in the eye of the beholder.

Today, Greenfield and three of the “Social Studies” participants — Cooper Klein, Dominic Brown and Jonathan Gelfond, all now 21 — are in a Venice bungalow, just back from showing the series to some 6,000 teenagers in San Francisco — young people who, by and large, had a much different reaction than their elders to the depictions of online bullying, body-image issues, partying, hooking up and FOMO culture.

These teens were sometimes gasping and talking to the screen, laughing at points, fully immersed, fully relating, even feeling nostalgic for TikTok trends that were popping three years ago.

In one episode, teenager Sydney Shear is having a text exchange with a guy Greenfield describes as “creepy.” We see the message he sends: “Permission to beat.” Right after she tells him no, the group of girls sitting behind Greenfield screamed, “You know he did anyway!”

“It’s really fascinating how differently adults versus adolescents reacted to the show,” says Klein, now a junior at Vanderbilt. “Adults are terrified by it, but young people find it funny. It’s like watching reality TV.”

Lauren Greenfield.

(Matt Seidel / For The Times)

Much has changed for these “Social Studies” subjects since Greenfield stopped filming in 2022. How could it not? The years immediately following high school usually bring about intense growth and change and, hopefully, a little maturity. The world around them is different. Palisades Charter High School, which many of the students in the series attended, was heavily damaged in the January wildfires. (“The show’s like a time capsule,” says Gelfond, a Pali High grad. “Looking back, the series is even more special now.”)

Some things haven’t changed at all, though. Technology remains addictive, they all agree. Even when you are aware that the algorithms exist to snare your time and attention, it can be hard to stop scrolling, the self-soothing leading to numbness and deepening insecurities.

“You can have a greater understanding about the effects, but it still pulls you in,” says Brown, who, like Gelfond and Cooper, has worked at teen mental health hotlines. “It’s hard to stay away from what is essentially our lifelines.”

Which is one reason why they all see the value in the Los Angeles Unified School District’s cellphone ban, which went into effect in February.

“The pull-away from tech only works if it applies to everyone,” Klein says. “When a whole group doesn’t have access, that’s when the magic happens. You’re going to start to connect with the people in front of you because …” She pauses, smiling. “I mean, you want to be engaging with something, right?”

Then you have time to do things like read and solve jigsaw puzzles with friends, two hobbies Klein says she has taken up again recently in a conscious effort to disengage from her phone. Reclaiming your time, she says, can only work if you’ve got a plan.

If the takeaway from the series was that parents couldn’t fully comprehend how technology shapes and defines their teens’ lives (“They’re the guinea pig generation,” Greenfield notes), watching “Social Studies,” either together or alone, has served as a conversation starter.

“I have always had a very open relationship with my parents,” Gelfond says, “but the way this really explains social media has led to eightfold more transparency.”

“It made me more grateful for the way my parents navigated all this,” Klein adds. “I thought they were overstepping boundaries, trying to protect me too much. And I think this show validated that they did a really great job. Because we were the first generation, they were kind of flying blind.”

Gelfond, left, and Klein, right, join one of the group discussions in “Social Studies.”

(Lauren Greenfield / INSTITUTE)

Now Klein wonders what she’d do differently if she ever has kids. She started on Instagram at 12. If she could go back, she’d probably delay that entry, even though Klein says it now seems normal for kids to join the app when they turn 8 or 9.

So what would be the ideal starter age?

“Maybe I’m crazy for saying this, but I think it should be 16,” Brown says. Greenfield nods her head, noting Australia recently banned social media — Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram and X — for children under 16.

“I got on Instagram when I was 10 or 11, and I had no idea of the world that I had just gained access to,” Brown continues. “You should wait until you gain critical thinking skills. Sixteen, 17, 18, maybe.”

“It is the end of childhood,” Greenfield says. “You get that phone and everything that comes with it, and it is the end of innocence.”

In that respect, Greenfield sees “Social Studies” in conversation with “Adolescence,” the Netflix limited series about a 13-year-old boy suspected of killing a girl. The boy had been actively exploring incel culture online.

“What’s scary about ‘Adolescence’ is how did they not know he was involved in something so terrible,” Greenfield says. “But it makes sense. That’s the world we live in now.”

Several years ago, little was known about the StingRay, a powerful surveillance device that imitates the function of a cell tower and captures the signals of nearby phones, allowing law enforcement officers to sweep through hundreds of messages, conversations and call logs.

The secrecy around the technology, which can ensnare the personal data of criminals and bystanders alike, spurred lawsuits and demands for public records to uncover who was using it and the extent of its capabilities. In California, a 2015 law requires law enforcement agencies to seek permission at public meetings to buy the devices, and post rules for their use online.

But a Los Angeles Times review of records from 20 of the state’s largest police and sheriff’s departments, plus the Alameda County district attorney’s office, found some agencies have been slow to follow or have ignored the law. Several that partner with federal agencies to work on cases are not subject to the law’s reporting requirements. The result is that little information on StingRay use is available to the public, making it hard to determine how wide a net the surveillance tools cast and what kind of data they gather.

Out of 21 law enforcement agencies surveyed, 12 were found to own or have access to a StingRay or similar device. Nine of those agencies had developed and released online public polices.

**Officers don’t operate the stingray but work with other agencies that may

Source: L.A. Times review of public records

The Times reviewed more than 400 documents it received from public information requests, including grant proposals, purchase orders and memos on the use of StingRays and similar devices generically called “stingrays” or “dirtboxes.”

The devices, which cost between $242,000 and $500,000, are primarily marketed for preventing and responding to terrorist threats, but the documents suggest they are used most frequently in felony criminal cases, such as burglaries, murders and kidnappings.

Out of 21 law enforcement entities The Times surveyed, 12 either owned stingrays or used or had access to them through partner agencies. Nine owned the surveillance devices, and each of them posted public policies online as required by law. Three of the nine went a step further to conduct annual reporting audits that showed when and in what cases the devices were used.

But some stingray policies posted by the law enforcement agencies revealed little about the devices besides noting they were in use. Other agencies took months to post their stingray guidelines online. The Los Angeles Police Department, which owns a stingray, updated its public safety policies to include its stingray guidelines only after questions from The Times.

Data on stingray purchases and use have long been difficult to come by, a problem the 2015 law requiring more public accountability was meant to correct — and has yet to fix.

California police would have to disclose the use of more surveillance devices under this proposed law>>

The Times found that the nine agencies that own stingrays bought them between 2006 and 2013, mostly with federal grant money or under programs or agreements that prohibited any public disclosure, following a national trend. Local tax dollars weren’t used on the purchases, and city and county officials didn’t ask about them in a public forum.

Just two of the 21 law enforcement agencies polled by The Times have ever publicly discussed buying new devices before city or county officials: Santa Clara (which did not buy a device) and Alameda counties.

And only one agency, the Oakland Police Department, has gathered input from the public to develop guidelines for stingray use, which isn’t required under the 2015 law.

“Any tool can be used for good or bad,” said Brian Hofer, chairman of Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Commission, which helped establish the surveillance policies. “This is the most controversial piece of equipment that we know about, and they should not be used in the dark.”

The StingRay II gives off the strongest wireless signal in an area, tricking nearby phones, tablets and laptops to connect. (Associated Press)

(Associated Press)

A device cloaked in secrecy

Stingrays tend to be the size of small briefcases and mimic the function of cell towers. They give off the strongest wireless signal in an area, tricking nearby phones, tablets and laptops to connect.

Investigators can target the location data of specific phones, allowing them to track suspects and their associates. They can also sweep up communications over a wide area. How much and what types of data they collect — location information, audio or images — depends on how the devices are designed and how law enforcement agencies use them.

The technology has been used for about 20 years by federal, state and local law enforcement, often secretly, under manufacturer agreements that typically prohibit agencies from disclosing the purchases.

The public did not learn about the existence of the equipment until 2011, after an inmate in federal prison, Daniel Rigmaiden, spent three years scouring government records and meeting transcripts on a hunch that investigators used some kind of secret device to catch him.

Rigmaiden, a native of Seaside, Calif., who hadn’t had a stable living situation, was arrested in Phoenix for filing fake tax returns. Police were able to find him through tracking an old Verizon wireless card he seldom used to connect online.

“It wasn’t just that [investigators] were able to get historical call data from Verizon,” said Linda Lye, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed an amicus brief in support of his case. “They were able to pinpoint him to a particular apartment in a particular apartment building, which was far more precise.”

State bill requiring California police to disclose surveillance equipment clears its first hurdle>>

In 2015, California lawmakers passed the sweeping Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which prohibited any investigative body in the state from forcing businesses to turn over digital communications without a warrant. That same year, state Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) introduced legislation to compel local law enforcement agencies to disclose more information about the use of stingrays in California.

“Our country has a rich history of democracy and civilian oversight,” Hill told a Senate judiciary committee that May. “The stealthy use of these devices undercuts the very nature of our government.”

The law, which took effect in January 2016, requires cities and counties that operate a stingray to create guidelines for how and when officers use the equipment. Any agency that wants to buy a device must first receive approval at a public hearing.

Investigators can target the data of specific phones. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

(Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

Opening access to information

The state law helped open up some public access to information about how and where the devices are used. Privacy advocates and lawyers have kept up the public pressure in some cities and counties, particularly in the Bay Area, calling on officials to put ordinances and guidelines in place to bar police from collecting data from those not under investigation.

Under most of those policies, officers can use the technology only when it is critical to a case and is approved by higher-ranking officers, or in emergency situations such as natural disasters. Investigators are also required to obtain search warrants. Any data not considered official evidence can’t be sought, recorded or stored. Officers must delete or destroy all information gathered by the equipment related to an investigation at the end of the period in which they’re authorized to use the technology.

Three agencies keep track of when officers use a stingray — the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the San Jose Police Department and the Alameda County district attorney’s office. But their data offer few details about the cases.

In Los Angeles County, a report from the sheriff’s office showed deputies followed state law and obtained a search warrant in nearly all 138 investigations that required a cell site simulator in 2015, and 38 investigations in 2016, the majority of which were murder cases.

In that time, the device helped officers arrest 70 suspects and find one crime victim. Sheriff’s Department officials declined to disclose further information or records on those cases.

Source: L.A. County Sheriff’s Office Ally Levine / @latimesgraphics Stingray use in Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies in Los Angeles County asked to use the surveillance equipment for investigations 138 times in 2015 and 38 times in 2016. In 2015 17 Narcotics 16 Assault 9 Robbery 6 Grand theft In 2016 Most common investigations using stingrays Murder 63 Murder 21 Weapons 3 Attempted murder 2 2 Rape 2 Assault* *with a deadly weapon

The Alameda County district attorney’s office, which purchased a device to be operated by the Sheriff’s Department and other area police agencies, said the stingray had not been used as of January.

The San Jose Police Department bought a $500,000 stingray in June 2013, and used it about 20 times between early September 2016 and June 2017.

Law enforcement officers in Oakland and San Jose, as well as several other California cities, say the law requiring them to disclose use of the devices has allowed them to ease community fears over what the technology can and can’t do.

“You watch TV and you’d think that we are sucking their phones dry of all the images, of all the texts, of all the pictures and emails,” said San Jose Police Lt. Steve Lagorio, who crafted guidelines for stingray use with the city attorney’s office. “But we are not. We don’t have that capability.”

The cellphone interceptor at his department is strictly used to target the phones of individual suspects, and Lagorio said he doubted any local law enforcement agencies used the equipment to do much more than that.

A traditional cellphone tower. Cell tower interceptors, often called “stingrays” or “dirtboxes,” tend to be the size of small briefcases and mimic traditional cell towers. (Jeff Roberson / Associated Press)

(Jeff Roberson / AP)

Calls for oversight

Privacy advocates and lawyers say a state agency is needed for oversight to ensure law enforcement agencies are following the law and post their own guidelines.

Most of the records on purchases and grant proposals reviewed by The Times were highly redacted, providing little insight into how their equipment is designed and what it can collect.

The LAPD provided purchase orders and invoices that show the department first obtained price quotes for stingray equipment in 2004, but it is unclear when it acquired the technology. LAPD officials said only that the stingray was not deployed due to technical malfunction issues, but declined to elaborate.

Other records from the Police Department show it obtained another stingray in June 2012, but the department declined to release additional information on the purchase, including its cost.

It was used more than 21 times in routine criminal investigations over four months in 2012, according to LAPD records that were first obtained by the First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit that works to advance free speech and open-records laws.

In response to an information request regarding its purchases of stingray devices, the San Francisco Police Department provided heavily redacted records, including a 2012 grant proposal and shipping receipt showing the purchase of “specialized surveillance equipment” in 2007.

The department also gave The Times a document indicating a stingray was bought with 2009 federal grant funds. But a spokesman said the department did not have any public policies on the technology because the equipment was not in use.

Seventeen of the 21 agencies polled by The Times said they did not keep or declined to provide data on how often and in what types of cases they used stingrays.

Privacy advocates point to a loophole in the law that allows some law enforcement agencies to avoid reporting their use of the devices. Police departments that partner with another agency that owns and uses a stingray in an investigation are not required to publish their own guidelines for using the equipment.

The Santa Ana and Fresno police departments, for example, said they did not have any records on the use and policies of surveillance devices. But both departments acknowledge they work with agencies that do have them, including the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service, and might have indirect access to the data they produce.

“Our officers don’t use the equipment, but we often look for fugitive hunters,” Santa Ana Police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said. “Anaheim [police] may have one, the U.S. Marshals may have one.… They do help us catch fugitives, but whether they have one — you’d have to ask them.”

A new proposal by state Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo), left, would expand the state’s transparency laws on StingRays and extend it to all surveillance devices. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

(Rich Pedroncelli / AP)

Increasing transparency

This legislative session, a new proposal by Sen. Hill would expand the state’s disclosure law on stingrays to all surveillance devices, including facial recognition software, drones and social media monitors.

Senate Bill 21 would require law enforcement agencies to disclose not only the use of the surveillance equipment, but the use of any information obtained from the devices.

Civil rights lawyers and advocates have supported the measure, saying transparency is necessary at a time when concerns over surveillance of immigrant and Muslim communities have risen under the Trump administration.

The legislation was narrowly approved by the state Senate, with heavy opposition from law enforcement officials who argued it would give criminals a road map to police agencies’ crime-fighting technology.

Its prospects of passage in the Legislature are unclear. Hill says he understands the technology has many benefits for law enforcement.

“[But] we need people — we need agencies — to be accountable, and we need civilian bodies to create that accountability standard,” he said.

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FOR THE RECORD

6:31 a.m.: This article reported incorrectly that Daniel Rigmaiden was arrested in Phoenix. He was arrested in Santa Clara.

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Twitter: @jazmineulloa